Smallville: The Darkest Night
by Danrilor
Summary: Smallville falls under the sway of a power that even Clark cannot fight. How can he defeat a mentally disturbed teen that can do anything, and what does it have to do with a drifter living in his car by the river?
1. Prologue

**Smallville: The Darkest Night**

Synopsis: On the night of Clark's senior trip Smallville suddenly falls under the sway of a power that even he cannot fight. How can he defeat the menace of a mentally disturbed teen that can do anything, and what does it have to do with that drifter that's living in his car down by the river?

Category: Smallville

Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama

Rating: PG13 for violence, teen angst, implied sexuality, gratuitous canoncide, and everything else that makes the TV show great. Incidentally, nobody in this story is homosexual. Not even Lex. Deal with it.

Author's notes: This takes place sometime in season four of Smallville, which I assume to be Clark's senior year. The story is meant to stand by itself and not be part of thelarger storyline.

**Prologue:**

It was just another night in Smallville, Kansas.

The former creamed corn capital of the world and current alien meteor rock capital was known for its normalcy, which was a laugh. Not only was it perhaps the least normal place with the least normal inhabitant in the world, but also had a history of monumentally bad fortune. The meteor strikes of the late 1980's were only a symptom of a greater problem. Nobody knew what it was about this little town that attracted trouble the way that it did… but tonight was no exception. Tonight would plant the seeds of a terror that would change lives forever, and nobody would recognize that terror's most unlikely messenger until it was too late.

After all… since when does terror drive a run-down El Camino?

Jonathan Kent was on his way back from a late run into town, which he had not intended to take nearly as long as it did. The Sheriff had once again bent his ear about how often his boy was in the middle of whatever trouble was going on. He had given her the normally polite brush off about it, thinking more about Clark than he was about the conversation with this woman. His boy had been on top of the world when he had won that State Championship as quarterback of the football team and been given a scholarship to Metropolis University. Then Alicia had been brutally murdered by a psychopath that believed he was on a moral mission, and he had never seen Clark so low. Despite the twisted events surrounding that day they had all held the hope that things might somehow settle down into something resembling normalcy.

They had been wrong.

The Chevy that was neither car nor truck swerved on old mill road, fishtailing dangerously at dangerous speed. Jonathan almost collided with the vehicle before he swerved out of its way, and his pacemaker almost gave out on him as he saw the El Camino go off the right side of the road and nearly slid into the lake. His mouth open to curse the idiot, but when he saw how much trouble he was in he stomped on his own brakes, screeching to a halt. The El Camino had just wrapped itself around a tree.

"Oh my God!" Kent gasped as he put his old truck in neutral and pulled the E-brake.

He saw a man stumbling out of the car, either slightly hurt or very drunk, and begin staggering toward the lake.

Kent jumped out of his car and started running at the man, wondering what the hell he was doing.

"Mister! Are you ok? Do you need a doctor?" Kent yelled as he ran closer, but if the man heard him he gave no sign.

"Fearless!" he heard the man, who he could see was a young man, yell as he approached the lake.

"What?" John said, stopping a safe distance up the slope. He could smell the alcohol on the boy from here, and knew that this young man was in a lot of trouble.

Thestranger stumbled toward the water, muttering, but John could make out some of what he was saying.

"Fearless…" he said again "Without corruption… without fear… without corruption… got the wrong guy…"

"Son…" Kent said, drawing closer to him, but the young man sprung up to his full height and bellowed.

"DON'T YOU SEE YOU CHOSE THE WRONG GUY?" He screamed at the top of his lungs and threw something into the air over the water.

For a moment, John Kent was sure that he saw a glint of green, as pure as the meteor rocks that made Clark sick, sail over the water and plop into the lake. He didn't have long to dwell on it, though, because the young man collapsed on the shore.

"Son?" John repeated himself as he helped the drunk to his feet. "Are you ok? Do you need a doctor?"

"I'm not hurt. You… you got a bottle?" The pathetic wreck asked.

He should have been angry, but when Kent looked at the boy who was looking back at him he did not see a college age tough who got carried away with the liquid courage. He saw someone who needed some serious help, just like he had at that age.

"I don't have a bottle, but I can take you somewhere safe… somewhere warm." He surprised himself by saying.

"Don't deserve safety… don't deserve warm…" the boy said.

"Deserve doesn't have anything to do with it. I'm John Kent, and you'll find the name means something around these parts. What's your name, son?"

"Mud." bubbled from between the boy's lips as he leaned against what was left of his car.

John had to keep himself from smiling "Other than that."

"Harold." He said.

"Well, Harold… I think that you should come with me before the sheriff shows up. This accident hurt nobody but that tree, and it would be a shame for you to lose your whole life over one stupid night. My Farm is just down the road. You can sleep it off and we can come back out to get this car in the morning. Nobody should be able to see it from the road. What do you say?"

"Don't think… I can argue." He said inarticulately.

"You're right." John Kent said as he slapped the kid on the shoulder. He didn't know why he was doing this, but it was not the first time he had done something against the law to help a lost soul. Sometimes, the right thing to do was not always the legal one. He just hoped that Martha agreed with him.

Neither one of them gave any mind to the object that was not sinking as it should have to the bottom of the lake. Instead, it was caught on a current that would take it all the way around the rim of the body of water to end up in the very worst place that it could possibly end up. But that was a story for another day, and as John Kent piled hapless, drunk, Harold into his truck he had no idea of the terror that tomorrow would bring. He had no way of knowing that it would wield a power that even his son would be powerless against.

Tomorrow would be the darkest night Smallville would ever know.

**Next:**

**The Lake**


	2. The Lake

**Smallville: The Darkest Night**

**Chapter One:**

**The Lake**

The reflected light on the water of Willow Lake was like flecks of gold floating on a green blanket. The Lake wasn't the clearest lake in Kansas, but it was the best for get-togethers because of its wide, sandy shore and inexhaustible supply of driftwood. Even now, in the early morning, the blazing bonfires made it seem like noon. Clark was careful to stay far away from them, not because he was afraid of the flames but rather what would happen if some jackass knocked him into the fire. He had discovered over the course of the last five years that not only was he fire proof, but bullet proof, bomb proof, knife proof, and punch proof. He would not be surprised at this point if he was nuclear bomb proof. Falling into the bonfire and coming out without a single blister might be the way that his secret finally came out. That, more than anything, was what he feared.

Four pairs of eyes regarded Clark Kent from two different parts of the beach. They belonged to Chloe Sullivan and Lana Lang, two very different girls staring for very different reasons. Lana stared because she was pondering the mystery of the man that had floated around the center of her universe ever since she was a very little girl. What was the secret that he had been keeping from her? What was so unspeakable that he had to go to the lengths that he had to conceal it from her? He had sacrificed their relationship again and again for some elusive reason. With graduation coming up… she might never know what that reason was. Chloe, however, knew all too well what that secret was… and that was the reason that she stared.

Clark was oblivious to the prying eyes of the girls because, as had happened often this year, distant cries for help rang in his ears like the clang of cymbals in the 1812 overture. His head snapped to the wood line, where his x-ray vision parted the thick underbrush to reveal the incident. With so many witnesses he knew that he couldn't use his superhuman speed to instantly arrive at the location, but he would be damned if he was going to allow that to happen. His parents hadn't raised him like that. He took off running with as close to human speed as he could manage with the sense of urgency he felt. As he disappeared into the brush he left behind Lana and Chloe with nothing to stare at, so their eyes met each other's with a gaze that was both knowing and totally bewildered. Clark had that effect on people.

Joe and Doug laughed as they plunged Dexter's head into the brook again, laughing like hyenas as his pathetic pleading turned into bursting bubbles with a slightly flatulent sound. They had done this to him many times in the men's bathroom, but for some reason thrusting he head into the ice-cold currents was even more satisfying. They pulled his head out of the brook again and laughed as he sputtered. Dexter's face turned purple for a second and a huge gush of water burst from his nose.

"Awww… does Dorkus have a widdle bit of wawa up his widdle nowse?" Doug baby-talked to him.

"Yeah… I think that Dorkus got water up his nose." Joe laughed.

"Please…" Dexter coughed weakly, having long ago given up trying to tell him that his name, spelled Dorcis, was pronounced "Door-sis."

"Pweese? Did I hear little Dorkus say pweese?" Doug cackled.

"I think that I did." Joe said, "We better help him wash that water out of his nose!"

"No!" Dexter screamed before they cut off his scream with another sudden dunk.

"Hey!" Clark yelled as he burst out of the bush "Let him go!"

Like any bullies suddenly confronted with a strapping football hero in a lettermen's jacket, Doug and Joe cut and ran into the bush with gusto, while Clark ran to the side of the coughing boy by the side of the brook.

"Are you ok?" Clark asked, yelling as if talking to a deaf person even though they were in the middle of a preternaturally quiet stand of trees by a babbling brook.

"Ok…" Dexter weakly coughed the word.

"I'm going to make sure that they don't get away… just stay here and I'll get help!" Clark yelled, taking off after the bullies.

Dexter just lay down and coughed, trying desperately to expel the last of the water from his lungs. When he looked up he was surprised that there was no sign of the guy who came to help him, and he was ashamed that he had said thank you or even opened his eyes to see who it was. He crawled to the brook and looked to the spot where they threw his most treasured possession. The book was his most precious possession, which he had jokingly called "my precious" when there was no one around to hear. He had been happily reading it by the brook when they jumped him from behind. The thick novel had been his only refuge from a world that had been nothing but pain and humiliation. As he fished JRR Tolkien's _The Lord of the Rings_ out of the brook his eyes swelled with tears when he saw what the water had done to it. It was beginning to swell and warp with the amount of water that it had absorbed, and the ink had blurred into unrecognizable splotches on the translucent paper.

"No…" He cried, clutching what was left of the beloved paperback to his chest as it fell apart in his hands.

The book had been his only friend, his trusted companion, through four years of hell where even the dungeon and dragons nerds in the library wouldn't let him play their game. Even they laughed at him and called him "Dorkus," although when they were in a good mood they would refer to him as "Frodo."

"No…" he sobbed as the thousand laughing faces and pointed fingers hovered in front of his eyes. The faces of girls who would never date him and of the guys who would never accept him mocked his devotion to the works of Professor Tolkien. The ones who didn't have the discipline or the dedication to take the time to learn the important Elven phases or the history of the Simerillion laughed inside his cranium. They all laughed at him as his precious disintegrated in his hands.

"NO!" He finally screamed, but his howl of grief fell on naught but the deaf ears of the trees, for even Clark was too busy taking the bullies to task to hear his lament.

Was he ever meant to see it? In this moment of grief or in any other? We would never know, for this is only a record of what did happen… not what should have.

The emerald glow was familiar to him, and at first he thought that it was one of the meteor rocks, that littered this little town like trash littered the Jersey shore. As his scream died away to an echo, though, he knew that this was something different. He was drawn to it despite himself. It almost… sung to him. It was something that did not want to be submerged at the mouth of the brook. It was something that wanted to be found.

His hands dropped the ruined book and desperately clawed at the mud and rocks, trying to unearth the thing that was calling to him. Nothing in his entire life could prepare him for what he pulled out of the mud that day.

* * *

John and Martha looked into the guest room at the young man that had not stirred since they brought him in last night. Martha's brows were knitted together in concern for the handsome young stranger, and John felt foolish for worrying that she would try to turn the boy away. She had always had a way of caring for anyone who needed it, and he felt foolish for having forgotten that.

"Do you think he is going to be ok?" She asked him.

"I think he'll be all right. There was not a whole lot of blood in his alcohol system last night, and I think that he needs his rest."

"I don't think that it is just the hangover… he seems totally exhausted." She said.

"His car had California plates… who knows how long he has been driving, or where he wanted to go."

"What was he doing here?" Martha thought aloud.

"He couldn't be a day over twenty three." John said, still bewildered that he had not been able to find any identification on the young man who identified himself as Harold. "He's probably just one of those college kids who go on a journey of self discovery after graduation. Afraid to join adult life."

Even though she didn't want to contradict him, Martha knew better than that. The second that she had looked at the young man she knew better than that. Jonathan's family had always revolved around the farm, but hers had revolved around a different institution. She had known the second that she looked at his crew cut that this boy was military. He was military through and through. His bomber jacket confirmed her suspicions. It was unmistakable even though all the patches were torn off. She didn't know how to tell her husband that this boy might be a deserter. She didn't want to add anything to the trouble that this young man was already in.

"Mom! Dad!" Clark yelled from the bottom of the stairs, causing them both to start "Has he woke up yet?"

Jonathan walked to the top of the stairs and held one finger to his lips, causing Clark to zip an imaginary zipper over his mouth as his adopted father quietly padded down the stairs.

"How was the party?" John asked.

"There wasn't…"

"I know all about senior skip day, son. Not a thing has changed since I was your age, believe me." John Kent smiled.

Clark sighed, still not able to get anything by his old man.

"It was fine, but then something happened… these two jerks picking on this guy who… is a little different. After that… I just didn't feel like a party." Clark admitted.

"I understand son." John said, "You have always been… a little different like this boy. You always will be. Different and special."

"I've accepted that." Clark said, "I just… I just don't know what to do about it."

John Kent put his hand on his boy's shoulder "It isn't like you have to decide it overnight. You try to do that and you might end up like that boy upstairs. There are some times in your life, like this one, that seems to be a crossroad. No road seems any better than the other. Your mother and I trust you to pick the right road. All that you have to do is trust yourself."

Clark looked away. After all that he had done, all the mistakes that he had made, could he trust himself to do just that?

* * *

The hot noon sun burned his skin red, but Dexter Dorcis had not budged from the side of the babbling brook. Instead, he rocked back and forth laughing a reedy little laugh. He had finally found it. After all this time, all this suffering it was his. His own. His precious. It was in his hands, and would be the instrument of his retribution against everyone and everything that had ever wronged him. It had promised him the power. A reedy little voice escaped his throat as he kept it clutched in his hand. The voice that almost didn't seem to be his recited the words that he had read so often.

_Three rings for the Elven kings under the sky,_

_Seven for the Dwarf lords in their halls of stone,_

_Nine for mortal men doomed to die,_

_One of the Dark Lord on his dark throne,_

_In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie,_

_One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,_

_One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,_

_In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie._

As the dark clouds moved to block the sun that had burned his skin, Dexter Dorcis laughed a full, throaty laugh. In the palm of his hand was the most powerful weapon in the universe. In his hands legions would fall before him and worship him like a god. Nothing could stop him. Nothing at all.

"My precious…" He cooed, stroking the glowing ring with the green lantern emblazoned on it.

**Next:**

**Darkness Falls**


End file.
